This 1890s-era photo is rich with detail about the Portsmouth Plains brick schoolhouse, first opened on January 3, 1846. Three teachers stand at the back by blackboards and a porcelain sink beneath a portrait of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (Continued below)

There is a heater on the left and a square grand piano on the right topped with dried flowers. Good boys and girls, hands crossed, stare somberly at the camera positioned above the teacher’s cluttered desk.